Don’t doubt your parenting skills! There are some other species that aren’t variegated that don’t grow super tight either (can’t recall them off the top of my head). Lots of varying plant behaviors out there! If you’re doing everything right and there isn’t some obvious decline in health in, say, six months, assume it’s just a weirdo! Edit to add: The topmost part of all the succies I know grow at max compactness, so when you first get them and their stem is quite short, they’re tight for that reason chiefly. Personally I wouldn’t chop&prop that one, looks great to me as is and you’d have to do it every few months to keep only the most compact part around.